First off, this art is beautiful. Down right beautiful. Second, the fanfic "The Next Great Adventure" is one of the greatest Young Justice fanfic's ever written.
Third.........(sigh) I know I'll probably catch some flak from the YJ fandom for saying this, but I have to say it. I honestly don't understand why people are getting so emotional over what happened to Wally in the show. Yeah.... I did just say that, but before anyone starts harping on me, hear me out. Young Justice is a show that offended me. Honest to God, it offended me. Of course it wasn't the characters, animation, or voice acting that offended me, since those were all wonderful (hell, probably the best out of any DC cartoon). It was a combination of the writing, and Greg Weisman himself. I couldn't find an overbearing plot in Young Justice. Sure, it had plenty of sub-plots (in actuality, it had WAY too many), but those were just haphazardly strung together. I also couldn't find any semblance of a three-act-structure in the show's story either.
Now folks, what I'm about to say may upset some of you, because I'm about to talk about what truly offended me (Please read this comment with an open mind).
On April 1, 2014, Greg Weisman answered a specific AskGreg question. The question had been posted back in December 2013, and reads as follows...... "Would Wally have returned if the show got a third season?"
Greg Weisman answered..... "No, he wouldn't have returned in the third season, or the forth season or the fifth, or sixth. He's dead, remember."
I am not fictionalizing this folks. This is what Weisman willingly said to a fan, on April Fools Day. THIS solidified my view of Weisman, which was already bad enough, since he started the show off on the wrong foot. That wrong foot being the time Weisman said, before the show even aired, "Not everyone's gonna survive this." He said that with a smirk on his face, to the point that he was almost laughing to himself. These are not the actions of a director who cared about these characters. These are the actions of a juvenile prick who thought it more important to use these characters as tropes to emotionally screw over the audience. This is why I can't be emotional over what happened to Wally in the show. It's kinda hard to care about characters in a show, when it's so obvious that the director of said show didn't give two flying fucks about any of them.
I DID NOT write this comment to try and convince people not to like the show. All of you out there who like the show, have every right to like it and every right to respectfully state why you like it. In the same light, I have every right to respectfully state why I don't.
I'll conclude my rant with this. Young Justice is NOT a shitty show, but it's not a great show either. It has plenty of faults, just like any other show. However, concerning how Greg Weisman treated the show, its characters, and to an extension, us, the audience, there is one undeniable fact about Young Justice. The true heart and soul of this show never resided in Weisman. It resides in its fans. It resides in art like this, and fanfic's like Brella's "The Next Great Adventure.", and that is where our emotions over the show should truly be invested.
Third.........(sigh) I know I'll probably catch some flak from the YJ fandom for saying this, but I have to say it. I honestly don't understand why people are getting so emotional over what happened to Wally in the show. Yeah.... I did just say that, but before anyone starts harping on me, hear me out. Young Justice is a show that offended me. Honest to God, it offended me. Of course it wasn't the characters, animation, or voice acting that offended me, since those were all wonderful (hell, probably the best out of any DC cartoon). It was a combination of the writing, and Greg Weisman himself. I couldn't find an overbearing plot in Young Justice. Sure, it had plenty of sub-plots (in actuality, it had WAY too many), but those were just haphazardly strung together. I also couldn't find any semblance of a three-act-structure in the show's story either.
Now folks, what I'm about to say may upset some of you, because I'm about to talk about what truly offended me (Please read this comment with an open mind).
On April 1, 2014, Greg Weisman answered a specific AskGreg question. The question had been posted back in December 2013, and reads as follows...... "Would Wally have returned if the show got a third season?"
Greg Weisman answered..... "No, he wouldn't have returned in the third season, or the forth season or the fifth, or sixth. He's dead, remember."
I am not fictionalizing this folks. This is what Weisman willingly said to a fan, on April Fools Day. THIS solidified my view of Weisman, which was already bad enough, since he started the show off on the wrong foot. That wrong foot being the time Weisman said, before the show even aired, "Not everyone's gonna survive this." He said that with a smirk on his face, to the point that he was almost laughing to himself. These are not the actions of a director who cared about these characters. These are the actions of a juvenile prick who thought it more important to use these characters as tropes to emotionally screw over the audience. This is why I can't be emotional over what happened to Wally in the show. It's kinda hard to care about characters in a show, when it's so obvious that the director of said show didn't give two flying fucks about any of them.
I DID NOT write this comment to try and convince people not to like the show. All of you out there who like the show, have every right to like it and every right to respectfully state why you like it. In the same light, I have every right to respectfully state why I don't.
I'll conclude my rant with this. Young Justice is NOT a shitty show, but it's not a great show either. It has plenty of faults, just like any other show. However, concerning how Greg Weisman treated the show, its characters, and to an extension, us, the audience, there is one undeniable fact about Young Justice. The true heart and soul of this show never resided in Weisman. It resides in its fans. It resides in art like this, and fanfic's like Brella's "The Next Great Adventure.", and that is where our emotions over the show should truly be invested.
Beautiful, beautiful comment!
And you're absolutely right. It's so frustrating at times when you think
about how the show COULD have been if Greg approached it with
a different attitude.
Thanks for taking your time and writing this wonderful comment!
And you're absolutely right. It's so frustrating at times when you think
about how the show COULD have been if Greg approached it with
a different attitude.
Thanks for taking your time and writing this wonderful comment!
Well, I really hope I'm not sounding like too much of a pessimist, but I'm not sure this show could have been anything other than a mellowdrama under Weismans's direction. For me, it's just so painfully obvious that Greg never put any heart or soul into this show. I'm not saying Weisman's a bad person, because he really is a great guy. What I am saying, is that Weisman was a completely wrong choice for a director of Young Justice. The reason I'm saying this, is because of an interview Weisman had with the video game reviewer, Angry Joe (Joe Vargas). During that interview, which was about the game Young Justice Legacy, Weisman and his partner director Brandon Vietti openly admitted that not only were they scared of directing YJ, but that they didn't even want to take on the project in the first place. Again, I'm NOT trying to paint an "Everything in Young Justice is shit" picture, but when the directors themselves openly state that they didn't want to initially take on the job, there's obviously a LARGE problem at hand.
Another thing that turned me away from this show, was the statements I got when I met some of the voice actors at different conventions. When I met Nolan North at SacAnime 2013, he said that it was really fun voicing Superboy, but he felt a little uncomfortable with the work environment Weisman had created. Again, not saying Weisman's a bad person, but it can't be denied, that when a boss has no passion for their job, that dispassion will filter down to their staff, and when that happens, the quality of their work degrades. It just seems like the management of YJ was never held accountable for anything, and because of this, the show was taken in every direction at once, with no overwhelming context to guide it in the best direction.
If I were to make a comparison between YJ and something, that something would be, New Coke. Now if you don't know what New Coke is, that's ok, and I'll explain. In the 1980's, CocaCola decided to remake Original Coke into a new flavor. New Coke was hyped to all HELL before it was released, however when it finally came out, people detested it so much that the company had to pull the product as fast as they could to save their revenue. So how is this like Young Justice? Well, much like New Coke, YJ was hyped to the hilt, and when the whole fiasco was over, it just left a bad taste in peoples mouths.
For what it's worth, Young Justice truly did have potential, and it still does. It's just that the potential it has never truly resided in the show itself. To restate what I said in my previous comment, the potential resides in us. When we write fanfics, we shouldn't ever restrict ourselves because of what happened in the show. Instead of rehashing already existing storyline's, we should make up our own. We should invent our own characters, both heros and villains, after all, Weisman did just that when he invented Kaldur'ahm. If your preferred ship didn't happen in the show, make it happen in a fanfic. Just because Weisman says something is cannon doesn't mean that what we say is cannon has any less validity. My advice, would be to ignore everything Weisman says about YJ, and invent your own cannon, because at the end of the day, all the characters in YJ are imaginary, and if something is imaginary, then it can be whatever anyone wants it to be. No one person can put limits on what is imaginary, not even Greg Weisman (personally, I think Weisman has forgotten that).
P.S. I have a few head cannon YJ crack-parrings/ships of my own if you'd like to hear them.
Another thing that turned me away from this show, was the statements I got when I met some of the voice actors at different conventions. When I met Nolan North at SacAnime 2013, he said that it was really fun voicing Superboy, but he felt a little uncomfortable with the work environment Weisman had created. Again, not saying Weisman's a bad person, but it can't be denied, that when a boss has no passion for their job, that dispassion will filter down to their staff, and when that happens, the quality of their work degrades. It just seems like the management of YJ was never held accountable for anything, and because of this, the show was taken in every direction at once, with no overwhelming context to guide it in the best direction.
If I were to make a comparison between YJ and something, that something would be, New Coke. Now if you don't know what New Coke is, that's ok, and I'll explain. In the 1980's, CocaCola decided to remake Original Coke into a new flavor. New Coke was hyped to all HELL before it was released, however when it finally came out, people detested it so much that the company had to pull the product as fast as they could to save their revenue. So how is this like Young Justice? Well, much like New Coke, YJ was hyped to the hilt, and when the whole fiasco was over, it just left a bad taste in peoples mouths.
For what it's worth, Young Justice truly did have potential, and it still does. It's just that the potential it has never truly resided in the show itself. To restate what I said in my previous comment, the potential resides in us. When we write fanfics, we shouldn't ever restrict ourselves because of what happened in the show. Instead of rehashing already existing storyline's, we should make up our own. We should invent our own characters, both heros and villains, after all, Weisman did just that when he invented Kaldur'ahm. If your preferred ship didn't happen in the show, make it happen in a fanfic. Just because Weisman says something is cannon doesn't mean that what we say is cannon has any less validity. My advice, would be to ignore everything Weisman says about YJ, and invent your own cannon, because at the end of the day, all the characters in YJ are imaginary, and if something is imaginary, then it can be whatever anyone wants it to be. No one person can put limits on what is imaginary, not even Greg Weisman (personally, I think Weisman has forgotten that).
P.S. I have a few head cannon YJ crack-parrings/ships of my own if you'd like to hear them.